Digital Primitive

Digital Primitive Digital Primitive #2: Porcupine + Onion Pinch Porcupine and Onion Pinch are two installations proposed by the architects and designers Caterina Tiazzoldi and Eduardo Benamor Duarte within the context of the Digital Primitive Event # 2 for the Bienial Experimenta Design 2009 and the fair of Composite Materials Compotec. The Digital Primitive Event # 2 is the second event of a sequence initially presented at the Giulio Capellini Young Talents selection for the Temporary Museum for New Design hold in the Milano furniture fair, april 2009. “They are Digital, because they are the first generation of New York designers and architects formed in a context characterized by digital modeling techniques and computer numeric control fabrication (CNC). They are Primitive because they have to respond to the limitations deriving from a city like New York.” The Installation for Digital Primitive Event #2: Iterative Design engages the idea of time trough the iteration, repetition and transformation of specific geometrical configurations. The scope of the project Digital Primitive # 2 explores the idea of digital primitive, which is manifested in the contrast between the speed derived from the computational iteration, and the slow from the strength and resistance of materiality. PROJECT 1: PORCUPINE (THROW FELT ALONG CURVE). Locations: From 09/09/09 to 20/10/09: Altis Belem Hotel & Spa - Doca do Bom Sucesso, Lisbon tel:+351.21040.0200 From 22/10/09 to 24/10/09: Compotec – Exhibition for Composite Materials – Massa Carrara Italy About: Designed by the New York based architects and designers Caterina Tiazzoldi and Eduardo Benamor Duarte (team Tania Branquinho and Mauro Fassino) in collaboration with (PASTOFO and POLITROFA), is an adaptable chair for hotel lobbies, restaurants and airports waiting areas. Inspired from the fractal growth of a shell, Throw Felt Along Curve is realized in felt an fiber glass. http://www.digitalprimitive.blogspot.com/ Its design has been generated with a parametric logic (deriving from a Grasshopper application) that allows to reconfigure in accord with the location and user's inputs. The prototype of the configuration Porcupine has been expressly designed for the reception space of the Altis Hotel in Lisbon. The installation emphasizes the question of the relation existing between the proliferation of abstract geometrical configurations and their becoming object or space trough material implementation. It engages the difference between an iteration based on an abstract geometrical model that can be downloaded and repeated in any part of the globe, and the resistance of the specificity of material materiality to such a temporal contraction. Detailed Description: By glimpsing to the typical Rhino tool Throw Curve along Curve, Porcupine transforms abstraction into design. Porcupine is realized with 40 sheets of felt realized by Pastofo, supported by a fiber glass skeleton realized by POLITROFA. The sheets's height varies from 68 to 30 cm while their spacing shifts according to the pressure of the body's weight or the proximity of a group of sheets. The design for the porcupine seat is processed through the iteration and transformation of a same component. In response the warmth and malleability of the felt produces a non-woven cloth that is produced by matting, condensing and pressing fibers. These fibers are produced by recycled residual waste processed in a sustainable manner into felt. The selection of the material become the unique condition to actualize geometry: It is by throwing felt, and not wood or steel, that the porcupine becomes a piece of design. What previously was an abstract procedure acquires the capacity to change the matter's performance. Credits: Design: Caterina Tiazzoldi and Eduardo Benamor Duarte team: T.Branquinho, M. Fassino. K. Seaman pictures: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano Sponsors: PASTOFO, Pasta para Estofos, S.A. POLITROFA - Ind. Plasticos Reforcados, Lda. Support of DIPRADI Politecnico di Torino 1. ONION PINCH About: Designed by the New York based architects and designers Caterina Tiazzoldi and Eduardo Benamor Duarte (team Katy Seaman, Tania Branquinho, Lorenza Croce and Mauro Fassino) in collaboration with AMORIM CORK COMPOSITES, The spatial installation Onion Pinch features the work of : Associated Fabrication; AUM STUDIO / Ed Keller - Carla Leitao ; Mark Bearak; Benamor Duarte Architecture ; Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation Columbia University ; Labdora / Peter Macapia ; Lucio Santos ; Nuova Ordentra/ Caterina Tiazzoldi, SOM Skidmore, Owings & Merill, Supermanoeuvre / Dave Pigram- Iain Maxwell ; Tietz-Baccon / Erik Tietz - Andrew Baccon; Theverymany / Marc Fornes ; Z-A studio / Guy Zucker. The Installation Onion Pinch: Digital Primitive Extended for Experimenta Design09 is a design / production process exploring the idea of time as iteration and will take place in the Lisbon subway station of Cais do Sodre and in the international fair on Composite Materials Compotec. The design for the Installation is processed through the iteration and transformation of a same component - a sheet of cork arranged as an "onion ring". Shape and profile transformations occur by literally pinching the cork with a bolt. The shape variation of the onion articulate the space in a exhibition path featuring the work of several New York based, architects, designer, academic researchers and manufacturers. By exploiting the cork flexibility the shape transformation and connection between parts describe the transformation and the contamination existing in the New York ground between research, education, practice, manufacturing and corporate world. Digital Primitive Extended follows the track of the Digital Primitive practice in New York by single out from an apparent common ground, practices that are entangled and co-dependent operating between academia, large scale corporate design, design or digital manufacturing practices. The stress placed in individualizing one practice can only determine the location and levels of associativity and physical proximity between all parts in the configuration. Credits: Design: Caterina Tiazzoldi and Eduardo Benamor Duarte team: T. Branquinho, L. Croce, M. Fassino, K. Seaman. pictures: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano With support of Politecnico di Torino Sponsor: AMORIM CORK COMPOSITES With contribution from Eng. Antonio Espinhosa Locations: From 09/09/09 to 20/10/09: Cais do Sodre Subway Station, Lisbon From 22/10/09 to 24/10/09: Compotec – Exhibition for Composite Materials – Massa Carrara Italy